Wolf watched as the black hole closed, and he instinctively knew that things had taken a turn for the worse. The thought didn't cross his mind alone. The rest of his team arrived too late to do anything, but they witnessed what happened and immediately understood the kind of trouble they had found themselves in.

"Ghost…"

The name left Beatrice's lips in a whisper, but the armored villain turned to face her, as if it had heard it. Before she could consider what to do, a crack echoed in the silence enveloping the street, and everyone's attention was drawn to Wolf.

Once again in his werewolf form, the furry hero growled at the armored villain and then lunged without hesitation. Kafka was the next to move, already drawing a white energy arrow as he prepared to stop his teammate the instant it looked like he would fall for the same trap, but then-

Nothing. There was no clash, and no black holes. The armored villain vanished just like that, leaving Wolf to land a few meters away.

Seconds passed, but nothing changed. Eventually, it started to feel like the villain wasn't returning, and that brought with it a different kind of fear.

"Um… everyone…" A nervous smile played on Merry's lips. "Are we… are we in trouble?"

No one said anything, but their silence in itself was an answer.

~[ ]~

Passing through the portal, Kaiser didn't know what to expect. He took in the sight facing him in a single instance and realized he was falling from the sky. Flipping his body around, he kicked the air and launched himself upward. Nevertheless, without a solid surface under his feet, he couldn't muster much speed, and the portal closed right in his face.

"Tsk…"

Gravity took hold of his body, and he began to fall down. Extending his senses, Kaiser searched for any signs of another portal, but there was nothing. It was then that he noticed the surrounding buildings resembled those of the street he had been on, but something felt off. Just as his feet touched the cracked road, his eyes shot wide open, and he looked up at the sky, realizing that the glowing clouds were gone, leaving nothing but a lightless expanse that seemed to stretch on indefinitely. This was not the same city he had been in.

[Tigris Kaiser.]

The eerie silence around him was broken by the harsh sound of countless grinding gears. His fur stood in ends as he jumped away, distancing himself from the source of the voice. It was there—the dark blue machine. Having transformed, Kaiser's senses were magnified, surpassing those of most living creatures in the world. Despite that, he hadn't sensed when the machine appeared behind him.

It stood still, letting him back away without even hinting at an intent to move. Noticing his rising heart rate, Kaiser felt his anger grow. Afraid? Him? That couldn't possibly be the case.

"What is this place?" He asked, trying to calm his nerves.

[The heir to one of the twelve families is a Level 6.] Ignoring his question, the machine went on. [Why am I not surprised?]

It turned to the right and started walking leisurely, entirely unconcerned by his presence. Though he wanted to lunge at it right away, Kaiser held back his frustration, keeping his guard up as he followed it with his eyes.

[You came searching for me, didn't you? Well, here I am.] It said. [What do you want?]

"Answering a question with another one?" Kaiser said. "I'm guessing manners isn't something you mongrels have."

[You are a human who can transform into a cat. I don't believe you have the right to call anyone a mongrel.]

Kaiser's eyebrows twitched, and the dam holding back his anger snapped.

"Guess I must rip the answer out of you!"

Kicking the ground, the golden tiger turned into a blur, zooming in on the machine. The distance between them disappeared, and he was right in front of it before a fraction of a second could pass. At the last instance, he stopped himself and made a sharp turn, appearing behind the machine after bouncing off the surrounding buildings. His clawed right hand shot out like a spear, but it pierced nothing.

The machine was now standing where he had been. The dust his sudden dash kicked had yet to rest.

[I take it back.] It said. [I already know what you want.]

"That makes it easy, then!"

Once again, Kaiser tried rushing the machine, even when he already knew catching it was practically impossible. He had no way of dealing with teleportation, so his only choice was to keep on raising his speed while trying to predict the spot where he would appear next. That was his plan, but it soon turned out to be unnecessary.

[To answer your question-] The dark blue machine held out a hand. The world shifted just as Kaiser was about to reach it, forcing him to quickly change his path. [This is a space I put aside just in case.]

'A barrier?'

Just as he realized that, the machine began to glow. He watched as it disintegrated, its outer shell turning into countless threads of light. Something was happening, and Kaiser found himself stuck, wondering if he should try to stop it or not. Before he could decide, the threads settled back in place, and the machine regained its form. Something about it was different, and once the light began to fade, he finally understood why.

The machine had changed, and not just in shape. The previous roundness was gone, replaced by the edges of segmented plating stacked on top of each other. Every part was as bulky as it was blocky, which added to its size, bringing it close to four meters in height.

Kaiser felt that he was looking at a power suit—a walking high-tech tank no other machine could stand before. As if coming alive, light seeped through the seams between its dark green plating. The air around it vibrated with a faint hum, and a second later, it turned to face him, the single jutting from its head pointing in his direction like a challenging blade.

[You're itching to go all out, right?] It said. [Well, go ahead. You don't have to worry about anything in here.]

As he studied the machine's new appearance, Chimi's words rang in his head. According to her, the villain suspected of being VOLCAN's host used multiple armors with different abilities. After witnessing what had just happened, Kaiser became convinced that this was indeed his target.

"No more small tricks, huh?" As he took a fighting stance, a golden light manifested around him, coating his arms and claws in a translucent layer.

[It's not every day I get to fight Level 6 opponents.] The machine said, light shining from all around its frame as it took a stance as well. [Don't die too quickly.]

The dark world seemed to stand still, time itself coming to a halt. There was no trigger to be pulled, and no bell to be rung. Even then, both sides instinctively knew the right moment to go. No one was there to witness the moment they moved. No one would have witnessed it, even if they were there.

Time seemed to lose meaning as the two met halfway, and the world warped as both swung their fists. A bright flash illuminated the darkness, then everything shattered.

There was no explosion. The air was pushed into the borders of the small world compressed to a point where the sound wave had no place to travel. The megacomplexes, 300-meter concrete monstrosities, scattered like sand castles blown by the wind of a powerful hurricane. They vanished in an instant, all thirty of them, leaving nothing but a ten-kilometer square wasteland—a crater that looked like it had been left behind by a meteor strike.

As the force of the blast died out, the compressed air flooded the vacuum at the center. As a cyclone blasted the scattered dust, two figures fell to the ground, paying no heed to the wind surrounding them. No sooner had their feet touched the solid surface than they vanished once more. The second clash was weaker than the first, but it was enough to disperse the brewing storm.

Nothing was left to destroy in their surroundings—nothing but each other. The green machine defied the image its form painted, moving with a fluidity one wouldn't expect from a pile of hard alloy. Every one of its blows was enhanced with a strange green energy. Worst of all, it seemed unaffected by anything, as if negating all forced directed at it.

The machine, Ghost, had done exactly as it had promised. No tricks, just a head-on clash, exactly what he wanted. Now that he had it, however, Kaiser was starting to have some regret.

'Damn it…'

It's not every day that he faces an opponent capable of harnessing as much physical power as he does, and in his full transformation no less. His right arm felt numb from the first clash. It wouldn't take long for it to completely heal, but the very fact that it was damaged rang the danger bells in his head.

As their clash seemed like it was going nowhere, the two separated, putting some distance between them. Kaiser welcomed the chance to fully heal, but as he glared at the green machine, he couldn't avoid a single thought from slowly corrupting his confidence. The thought that he might lose.